The UK has today announced 449 more coronavirus deaths – the fewest for a fortnight.
England declared 429 deaths and a further 20 were confirmed across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. And 4,676 more people have tested positive for the virus, taking the total number of patients to 124,743.
The day’s death toll is a fall on the 596 fatalities announced yesterday, Sunday, and half as many as the day before that (888). It is the lowest number for a fortnight, since April 6 when 439 victims were confirmed.
Although the statistics are known to drop after a weekend, the sharp fall adds to evidence that the peak of the UK’s epidemic has blown over.
It comes as a medicine professor at the University of Oxford has argued the peak was actually about a month ago, a week before lockdown started on March 23, and that the draconian measures people are now living with were unnecessary.
Professor Carl Heneghan claims data shows infection rates halved after the Government launched a public information campaign on March 16 urging people to wash their hands and keep two metres (6’6″) away from others.
He said ministers ‘lost sight’ of the evidence and rushed into a nationwide quarantine six days later after being instructed by scientific advisers who he claims have been ‘consistently wrong’ during the crisis.
Professor Heneghan hailed Sweden which has not enforced a lockdown despite fierce criticism for ‘holding its nerve’ and avoiding a ‘doomsday scenario’.
The country has recorded just 392 new patients and 40 deaths today, approximately 10 per cent of the UK’s figures. Britain’s diagnoses have not been announced yet.